Restaurant Review: Storrs Smokehouse

Breakfast is a reassuring sign at a
barbecue joint. Even if you’re not in the mood for early-morning
biscuits and gravy, it’s always good to see the pitmaster hanging around
the kitchen just after dawn.

Loal Stahlnecker, the pitmaster at Newberg’s new Storrs Smokehouse, says it’s no sweat for his crew: “We’re here anyway.”

That’s what I like to
hear. And after Storrs’ sampler plate ($19), which offers a taste of
all the meats at this super-casual side project from the owners of the
nearby Painted Lady restaurant, I’m appreciative of his predawn efforts.
If you’re headed down to wine country this summer, Storrs is one of
your better options for a low-key post-pinot meal.

The
Gran’ Daddy “plate” is actually a red plastic cafeteria tray lined with
white butcher paper and heaped with four meats. It’ll easily serve two.
The ribs were best, a trimmed-down St. Louis cut that was tender but
pleasantly ropey below a crust of peppery dry-rub.

The
brisket was also on the firm side, and improved by the sweet heat of
the Spicy Cowboy sauce, among four sauces on the table. The cut was
better on the plate ($12 with coleslaw, pickle and a slice of bread)
than as a sandwich made with Pearl Bakery’s familiar ciabatta and a
layer of gooey white cheese.

I’m
not usually a fan of smoked wings, given that small pieces of chicken
tend to get mushy in a smoker. But Storrs does one of the better
versions, the white meat darkened with smoke and coated in a sweet maple
sauce. Still, I wouldn’t buy them outside the sampler plate; six are
priced at $1 each otherwise.

We
tried pulled pork both on a stand-alone sandwich ($7) and from Gran’
Daddy’s lap. The plate version wasn’t properly shredded: We had to pull
big pieces of black bark apart with our forks to get the right mix of
meat. The sandwich’s pork, happily, didn’t suffer the same problem.

The
sides, as is common with new ’cue restaurants, need a little work. Rich
baked beans ($3.50 small, $6 large) with bacon bits in a thick sauce
were delicious, as were the pickles and pickled green tomato slices, but
the orange-tinted pasta salad ($3.50 small, $6 large) was watery rather
than creamy, and the three-bean salad with chickpeas, kidney beans and
sliced green beans ($2.50 small) was useful only as an acidic palate
cleanser. Those problems are easy enough to iron out, though.

I
wasn’t around to try the biscuits and gravy, which are available
starting at 7 am. But it seems like a smart stop if you can withstand
hunger long enough to get past that 99W traffic. It’s best to get an
early start in the valley—after all, winemakers, unlike pitmasters,
mostly keep banker’s hours.